"He found in that case, the warp drive could be powered by a mass about the size of a spacecraft like the Voyager 1 probe NASA launched in 1977."

"The findings I presented today change it from impractical to plausible and worth further investigation," White told SPACE.com. "The additional energy reduction realized by oscillating the bubble intensity is an interesting conjecture that we will enjoy looking at in the lab."

"White and his colleagues have begun experimenting with a mini version of the warp drive in their laboratory.

They set up what they call the White-Juday Warp Field Interferometer at the Johnson Space Center, essentially creating a laser interferometer that instigates micro versions of space-time warps."

Even though this is a great step, I reckon to achieve the kind of energy levels in question we will need to either achieve controlled fusion, discover some exotic material (aka dilithium crystals from start trek) or master energy production using matter-antimatter reaction? Nothing we have will still provide the mass-energy of a voyager sized craft.